


conversations hard and wild

by jugandbettsdetectiveagency



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: 3.15 fic, F/M, Fluff, and I say not on my watch, i have Jones family feelings, lite™ sexy times, missing moment, we didn’t get Betty meeting Gladys and JB, with a hint of family angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 13:01:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18136094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugandbettsdetectiveagency/pseuds/jugandbettsdetectiveagency
Summary: It’s only true to the laws of fate, seemingly intent on throwing him curveballs, that Betty is involved in his mom’s latest surprise.Or, the Jones family are moving in. A 3.15 missing moment.





	conversations hard and wild

**Author's Note:**

> title from train in the distance by paul simon

Surprises had never had good connotations in the Jones household. Surprises ended in verbal sparring matches, and empty beer cans. They sounded like the slam of a door and the shake of a tin roof over a rickety trailer. They smelled like burnt toast, dirty laundry, and the final waft of his mom’s perfume as she grabbed the keys and took off, seemingly forever.

 

(Shockingly, Jughead had found, that last part wasn’t so surprising.)

 

Surprises were the girl you loved throwing you a party and you throwing it back, in the form of tears glistening along her waterline. The swish of her ponytail as she walked away from you. Nicks in her palms as she offered up her sorrows.

 

But there were, Jughead realised, other things in his life that surprised him in the most wonderfully pleasant of ways.

 

Corners of lips ticking upwards after an impromptu kiss. Fingers, linking together on cold walks home. Reassuring hands cupping his cheeks; her touch, laced with the words ‘ _I believe you_ ’ and ‘ _I heard you_ ’ and ‘ _I love you_ ’.

 

Surprises had become Betty Cooper, encasing him in her every effort to make good things happen. Letting him live next to her, with her, for her. The sickening swoop that had pulled his stomach with each step he took up the ladder to her window that day hadn’t stopped since, and he didn’t ever want it to. Every time he looked at Betty, looked at her looking back at him with that thing in her eyes they called love, Jughead was reminded that good things could happen—good things _had_ happened—and you didn’t always get to plan the route to get to them.

 

Which is why it’s only true to the laws of fate, seemingly intent on throwing him curveballs, that Betty is involved in his mom’s latest surprise.

 

Waking to the smell of bacon had become something of a regular occurrence for Jughead recently— _not_ that he was going to knock it in any way. There was something divine about waking to the the sizzle of grease and the hum of a radio, and not have it be because you dropped off over your coffee around 2AM in the back booth at Pop’s. Granted, the camp bed he’d been set up on wasn’t the most comfortable of resting places he’d ever slept on, but it wasn’t the least by a long shot.

 

Jellybean bounces on him the moment he lifts his head and Jughead retaliates with his profound knowledge of her most ticklish spots (it’s always been her knees). His mom throws a halfhearted chastisement their way, singing along to whatever song as she turns back to the pan. His dad walks in with a tie hung loosely around his collar, taking an appreciative sniff. FP hovers behind his mom for a moment and Jughead can see how this one should play out.

 

The hesitancy in FP’s step is apparent, added to by the way his fingers twitch uncertainly at his sides, half in reach, half in nerves.

 

It’s something of a Rockwellian fever dream—the thought that he, Jughead Jones, could wake up inside a home with two parents, a sibling, and a fully stocked refrigerator. That his sister could be pestering him to get a rise, and his mom could be cooking, and his dad could come up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist before leaning in to press a kiss to her cheek and wish her a good morning. And Jughead can see the disbelief in the way FP stops short, not sure how far he can take this picture of normalcy before it shatters in their grasp.

 

He doesn’t have to dither for long, though. Gladys leans back, spatula in hand, far enough to pat the scruff of his cheek and place her lips to the corner of his mouth in a sweet, but fleeting, kiss. “Morning, hot stuff.”

 

FP blushes and Jughead stifles his smile. Both pretend they don’t hear Jellybean’s muttered, “Gross,” from her seat at the kitchen table.

 

A fall wind has picked up outside, whistling through the loose seals around the windows and doors, breaking goosebumps along Jughead’s arms as he sits at his typewriter, watching his fantasy family play out a script at the breakfast table. The cold barely registers. It’s inconsequential. It’s nothing compared to weathering a storm in the booth at the Twilight. Or hunkering down in a janitor’s closet after the heat cut out at school.

 

It’s nothing compared to the warmth threatening to flicker into a full, flaming fire in his chest as he looks at the people he loves, loving each other. Smiling together.

 

Something deep down in the shadowed corner of his stomach wobbles threateningly, like the screws aren’t tight enough and that fall wind could turn into a gale and blow the scene away. Like there’s been a string of too many good days without the break of a bad—a wave always comes crashing down after it crests.

 

The wobble oscillates on the echo of, “It’s a surprise,” muscles tensing, reliably, of their own accord when Jughead’s thrown into the unexpected, with promises that he’ll like it. He wills himself to relax, focusing on a different part of his body at a time, the way he’s seen Betty do when she’s stressed or anxious. First his jaw, then his shoulders, his hands, his stomach and thighs. He’ll tell Betty it worked to settle him later, when he winds her hair around his fingers and presses her against the wall. He’ll whisper it into the skin of her neck, right over where her pulse is fluttering— _that_ is more than enough to pull back the happy thoughts.

.

.

.

The scene outside the window is intensely familiar once they’ve hit the road, after piling into his mom’s car that smells faintly like some kind of cologne mixed with old gym socks. The scenarios it triggers catch Jughead off-guard—a series of stills where faceless Toledo kids get dropped off at soccer practice, or picked up from the library, or driven to Homecoming by his mom. Kids that aren’t him.

 

He thought they’d never be him. Thought that his relationship with his mother ended with the click of a receiver and the skid of his suit jacket down the glass of a phone booth.

 

But here they sit—Jellybean and Dad arguing over the radio, and Mom riding recklessly with one hand on the wheel, the other flicking flakes of mascara off her cheek in the rearview mirror. Gladys catches Jughead’s eyes, crows feet emerging around hers as she smiles softly back at him in such a way that all worries melt quickly.

 

Until he looks back out the window.

 

The engine purrs around the corner of Elm Street, gliding sweetly to a stop right outside one-eleven. The Cooper’s house. Betty’s house.

 

A plethora of explanations rush through his head in the second it takes for Gladys to yank on the parking break and cut the engine. A surprise? At the Cooper’s? For FP? She may be something of a stranger to him now, but Jughead doesn’t believe that his mom would go as far as to involve Alice in some kind of sickening victory dance upon her permanent arrival back in Riverdale. Jughead shudders, banishing all thoughts of that Westerosi-level history before they can even take root.

 

Maybe they were coming to pick up Betty? After slipping her name into casual conversation one to many times, his mom had finally called him out on meeting his ‘wonderful girlfriend’. Jughead hadn’t thought it would be on Gladys’ terms but he wasn’t entirely opposed to the meeting.

 

A hush seems to fall over the street as they ascend the steps to Betty’s, magnifying their footsteps as they tread out of sync up to the front door. Curtains twitch in his periphery, invisible dog walkers cross the street, and a burning in Jughead’s cheeks tells him to turn tail and flee right up the path to the sanctity of the Andrews’ across the road until whatever is about to happen blows over.

 

The tension is killing him by the time his mom starts to laugh. “What are we doing here?”

 

Gladys turns, face alight. “It’s an early birthday gift for your dad.” She gestures to the two story Colonial. “Well, for all of us. Just closed on it a few days ago.” Birds chirp in the stunned pause that follows.

 

“Mom—”

 

“Gladys—”

 

Jughead’s stomach drops to his feet as the door opens with a click.

 

“FP?”

 

“Jug?”

 

It’s straight out of a sitcom. The six of them on a doorstep, shoes shuffling and weight shifting, keeping too distinct a distance between their families for the scene to be mistaken as comfortable. Jughead tries to meet Betty’s gaze, silently plead with widened eyes that he didn’t know, didn’t have anything to do with this, she has to understand. But Betty’s too busy casting looks between everybody, the cogs audibly whirring instead her head.

 

“Mrs Jones…” It comes out sounding equal parts cautious and suspicious—exactly how he didn’t want their first official meeting with Betty as his girlfriend to go, but how he’d known it would all the same. “Are you the anonymous buyer?” She’s squinting. The squinting is never good, unless he’s on the right side of it. He doesn’t think he is this time.

 

Surprise.

.

.

.

_“You sold our house to the Jones’?”_

 

Jughead knows Betty didn’t mean anything by it. He knows she was shocked, and caught off guard, trying to process the sudden revelation in the same way as the rest of them. But something burns involuntarily in his throat, something that labels itself as shame.

 

The _Jones’_ , like it’s a dirty word. He’d thought as much for a lot of his life, wishing that his surname sounded more like Andrews, or Cooper, or even Keller. Clean cut and all-American, not common fodder like his own. The Jones’ live in a trailer, and come from a broken home. Run gangs, and drink their sorrows, and don’t deserve to set foot on the northside of town. It’s a hard mindset to shake, especially when you hear it confirmed from other peoples’ lips.

 

“Obviously we aren’t going to move in,” Jughead assures her when they’ve made their escape, sitting on the front steps. Gladys had made a joke about fumigating the master bedroom and that was definitely their cue to get the hell out of dodge.

 

Betty rolls her head to toss him a dry look. “How much do you wanna bet?” She’s clearly trying to play it off as funny, but it falls a little short, the resignation in her voice staunching its flow. “My mom wants to sell it, your mom wants to buy it—it’s done.” It comes out sounding final, like a reprimand, and Jughead hides his wince by hunching his shoulders in further.

 

Trying to deny this catch-22 is futile. How many times had Jughead longed to live on the same street as Betty and Archie? Felt the acidic churn of jealousy every time they’d part ways after play dates and he had to call for a ride home across town? He’d been jealous of stairs and a backyard. Of a fireplace that didn’t run on gas bottles and _plink_ every time the rain dripped in.

 

But it was more than that, Jughead knew. It was the home that came with the house. He’d wanted a mom and dad that married for more than circumstance. To wake up to the sound of peace and cartoons on Saturday mornings, not hungover arguments from behind the kitchen partition.

 

The Cooper house loomed behind them, an ominous hill, but Jughead wasn’t sure this was his one to die on. He’d wanted all those things he thought a good neighborhood could fix for him, especially as a child, to continue on from the world he’d woken up in this morning, but never at the expense of Betty.

 

“Listen, I get that you don’t want a family like _us_ dumping all our crap on your childhood home, trust me. I’ll try and talk to Mom again and see if maybe…” Jughead trails off, unsure _what_ he’d see if maybe.

 

Betty’s hand shoots out to grip his forearm, her ponytail thwacking him on the side of his head as she turns quickly, brows knitted together in confusion. “Wait, what?”  

 

“What?” Jughead echoes with apprehension. She puzzles him over for a moment, taking in his expression in that intense way only she knows how to. She can read him like a book if he lets her.

 

“Oh! You don’t think— Juggie, no!” she exclaims, reaching up to cup his cheeks firmly. His face twists with embarrassment even as she soothes his frayed nerves with a stroke of her thumb. “No! I didn’t mean to make it sound like it was _you_ I didn’t want buying our house. I didn’t… I don’t…” She sighs, dropping her hands to his lap, plucking at one of the buttons on his jacket.

 

“It’s a really weird situation,” Jughead offers helpfully after a beat of comfortable silence, grabbing her hand to hold onto.

 

“It is!” Betty replies gratefully, her shoulders stooping like the tension has been sucked out of her. “I mean, aside from the fact that my mom and your dad had… _something_ with each other in a past life, and now your parents are going to be sleeping in my parents’ old room, and you in mine—without me, no less… God, you kind of have to laugh don’t you?” She smiles weakly, a slight tremor to her lips.

 

Jughead huffs a breath close to a chuckle and draws her into him with a hand around her shoulders, tucking her into his chest and pressing a kiss to her crown. “Yeah, laughing is probably best.”

 

“It’s mainly the fact that she’s selling it altogether. It just feels like she’s succumbing to whatever fucked up hold Dad had over our lives by attaching it to this house that was only partly his. Like she’s giving in when she could, I don’t know, try and reclaim it from him. Get back to the life she wanted to build when she left home. It makes it seem like this whole thing—my whole life, and Polly’s too—was a kind of failed experiment. Not worth trying to work for on our own.”

 

Jughead considers this, absentmindedly running his hand down Betty’s arm as she talks until he feels the tension fall from her frame. Alice Cooper trying to be someone she wasn’t got her to the point where her husband was incarcerated, one daughter had joined a cult, and her house had been purchased by her old boyfriend’s estranged wife for their family. No matter how many kimonos she put on, or herbs she burnt, life was not coming up roses for Betty’s mom.

 

What would happen to them, an already strained family unit, trying to up sticks and move to the side of town that rejected them like a faulty organ, sullying the cleanliness of the town’s body with each breath they blew? Even when Jughead thought things couldn’t get any worse, the world had a tendency to _surprise_ him.

 

“And then she just up and sells our house to move to an actual cult that almost drowned her. And she won’t even listen to the fact that I definitely do not want to come with her, or have any part in this whole thing.” She groans quietly, knocking her forehead against the curve of his shoulder. “I knew it’d have to be something incredible to get this murder house sold and—” she laughs quietly against the denim of his jacket.

 

“Surprise,” he finishes for her, shaking his head subtly at the ridiculousness of it all.

 

“Now I see your aversion to them.”

 

Jughead’s next laugh comes out closer to a bark, jostling Betty where’s she’s wedged against his side. “Y’know I’m glad we can joke about that now,” he teases, pinching her cheek lightly for emphasis.

 

Betty tilts her face up to show him her smile. “Knew we’d get through the stages of grief one day. It just took a few other traumatic events to eclipse my disastrous foray into party planning.”

 

Jughead stares at her fondly before ducking down to capture her lips in a kiss. The morning sun peeks over the tree-lined streets, chasing away the shadows that surround them on their spot on the steps. Jughead slips his fingers into the hair at the base of Betty’s neck, loosening it as he tilts her head to better press himself as close as possible. She hums quietly against his mouth, a contented sort of sound that brings back that flood of warmth to his extremities—not quick and sudden, like a blaze, but slow and creeping like the sunrise itself.

 

The days of youth seem to stretch on so long while they’re being lived that often Jughead remembers feeling like there’d never be a time when they were over. Sitting on this step with Betty in the in between of maybe moving, maybe not, feels like the hours have finally stopped dragging their feet, shuffling him into the next phase of his life that doesn’t revolve around waiting for better, waiting for something he never had to come back.

 

If he never got to live the suburban dream with his family he thinks he’d be okay with it now. The home he needs doesn’t require a second story, or a yard, or his own room. Instead it’s this feeling, right now, as he registers Betty’s hand dancing lightly across his thigh beneath the crisp sunlight. It’s knowing his mom is home, and his dad is employed, and his sister is close.

 

“Oh, crap.” Betty breaks away from him so suddenly their lips part with a sort of smack.

 

“What is it?” Jughead asks, half in a daze. He can’t stop himself from watching the way her lips move around the words, slightly swollen and red from their makeout in broad daylight.

 

“Your mom, Jug. And Jellybean. That’s not the way I wanted to be introduced to them. As your girlfriend and not a four year old this time.” She pulls her lower lip between her teeth, a nervous habit. Jughead wants to do it for her, his brain still addled in that delicious way. “What must they think of me if even _you_ thought I sounded judgey?” she whines, tipping her head back in frustration.

 

“Hey, it’s okay. Believe me, whatever it is that happened back there, everyone is trying to forget it.” A part of him, he’d never admit, was delaying the meeting on purpose. His family unit was so fragile, balancing on the point of a switchblade, that he almost felt like keeping Betty separate was keeping her away from a ticking time bomb. But he’d done the trying to keep Betty out of all facets of his life, and it never ended well. “I wanted to introduce you to them properly, too, when we all had the chance. Over a milkshake at Pop’s perhaps.”

 

She smirks up at him before standing and dusting off the seat of her jeans. “The most neutral territory in all of Riverdale?” she ribs, offering a hand to pull him up.

 

“Minus the underground lair, sure.” He takes her hand. “Anyway. Ready to go asses the carnage?”

 

“Well, I haven’t _heard_ any blood curdling screams…” Betty cringes.

 

“Haven’t you ever heard of silent but deadly?”

 

“Gross, Jug.”

 

* * *

 

It’s unsettlingly quiet when they push open the front door once more. The further they venture the more low voices start to drift towards them from the kitchen. FP has his back to the door, head bent low in conversation with Gladys so she’s the first to spot them.

 

“Hey, kids,” she says loudly, cutting off whatever speech FP was giving her. “Your mom headed out back to the garage to pack up some more stuff before you move out.” She addresses this to Betty, the casual nature of her tone barely serving to hide the scrutiny beneath, or the underhanded jibe thrown her way.

 

Betty’s memories of Gladys Jones are few and far between. They come from that place in her distant memory that is coated with a perpetual fog, more of a stop motion than actual scenes, too young to have saved all the pieces to put together properly. She was tough and stoic, always rushing about from place to place with tired eyes, rarely the one to drop Jughead off for play dates with her and Archie.

 

Jughead barely spoke about her to the point where he hadn’t even told his friends she’d upped sticks and left town until they found out he’d not been sleeping at home anymore. Betty could never work out if he was ashamed of her, or just angry that she’d left him behind. Jughead could be closed off when it came to his emotions, but Betty knew better than anyone that he was fiercely protective when it came to those he loved—like her, the Serpents, or his family. Having his mom just leave the two of them to fend for themselves like that had to have hurt him more than anything, but she wouldn’t put it past him to be embarrassed by Gladys Jones’ lack of familial solidarity. Time and time again she’d watched Jughead fight for his dad even when he didn’t deserve a second or third chance, and having his mom give up on them like that… It was the ultimate betrayal.

 

She hadn’t wanted to pry, learning quickly that it was best to let Jughead come to her. He always would if he had something to get off his chest, even if it took longer than expected. His mom and Jellybean coming back to Riverdale had cropped up in a casual conversation, almost an afterthought, and that was it. No elaboration, nothing.

 

Betty thought she’d get to meet them soon after. But as the days ticked by and it wasn’t mentioned again she’d started to get worried. Surely he wasn’t trying to keep her from them. They’d been through enough together that they were involved in every part of each other’s lives, and his mom and sister were a pretty big part. She’d been nervous to meet Jellybean, mainly. Not that she thought she had to have his little sister’s approval to date Jughead but… she kind of wanted it. Having people approve of her, like her, was a Betty Cooper specialty. A part of her personality, even.

 

(Not always a good part but… She was working on it, okay?)

 

Meeting Gladys was something else entirely. Working out how she felt about the woman who had caused the love of her life so much pain and heartbreak was a big, emotional step, and without Gladys in front of her she was finding it difficult. Marrying those blurry glimpses of a dark haired woman through a fogged car window or turning the corner away from the elementary school, with a real person in the present day was hard, and she was nervous to get to it.

 

Having such an important meeting over the kitchen island in her home that had just been bought by said mother wasn’t even close to how she pictured it.

 

But she was nothing if not an improviser.

 

“Sure. Um. Hi, Mrs Jones. I apologise for before—this is all just a bit of a surprise,” Betty replies in her politest tone, one that includes perfect enunciation and an accompanying smile. She hears Jughead cough beside her, covering a laugh.

 

“Don’t sweat it, no harm done.” She doesn’t miss the way Gladys’ eyes scan down her body, taking her in from her ponytail to her booties. “So you’re Betty, huh? Heard a lot about you from Jug here—can’t stop talking about you.” She turns her glinting eyes to her son.

 

“Mom,” he mutters, ears reddening beneath his beanie. She’s teasing him, and he’s adorably embarrassed, and FP’s watching with some distant amusement, and the whole scene just feels so unsettlingly _normal_. For a second Betty almost forgets where she is, and what’s happening right now.

 

She gazes up at Jughead fondly, hand reaching to hold his like an anchor. “Yeah, well, Juggie is pretty great himself.” He looks at her from the corner of his eye, the dancing smile he saves just for her gracing his features.

 

“So, how did this happen?” Gladys continues, gesturing with a finger between the two of them, leaning back against the counter and folding her arms, settling into her new environment. “Jughead’s been pretty tight lipped with the details.”

 

“Maybe because you don’t need to know them,” Jughead grits out, growing more mortified by the minute. He’s been so in control of everything recently, so sure footed in his attempts to wrangle the Serpents into something cohesive, that it’s actually kind of cute to see him squirm beneath his mother’s questions. Like they’re actual teenagers, doing actual teenage things, dodging the third degree from their parents.

 

“C’mon, Gladys, give the kid a break,” FP cuts in placatingly, his new regular garb of sheriff’s uniform only adding to his vibe as adjudicator.

 

“It’s okay, FP,” Betty smiles, shaking her head. “Jughead quoted Shakespeare and agreed to help me with an investigation. It was very romantic.” She can feel her own cheeks heating as she lets the memory consume her, a fluttering of fondness filling her belly.

 

“Just like his dad, hey FP?” Gladys digs an elbow into his ribs. FP lifts a hand to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck. It’s a move that reminds Betty so much of Jughead that she can’t help but agree with the statement. But Gladys isn’t done. “A sappy romantic with a taste for Cooper women. Guess it’s genetic.” She shrugs, her tone jovial but her stare hard and unwavering.

 

Jughead stiffens. FP sighs, audible from across the expanse of the kitchen, resigned. “Gladys, don’t—”

 

“It’s just an observation!” She holds up her hands in defence. “An objectively true one. I mean, I was just as surprised as the next person when I heard my son was dating Alice Cooper’s daughter.” She says it like it’s a curse word, souring her mouth. “Who could have called that?”

 

Betty’s jaw has begun to ache with the effort to keep her mouth shut. Jughead has gone worryingly quiet and still beside her, and no matter how angry she is for herself right now, it’s nothing compared to how angry she is for him. The air hangs, heavy and stifling, between the four of them for a moment.

 

It’s all for an agenda, Betty realises suddenly, watching the way Gladys stands with locked knees, facing forwards, ready for battle. Every word out of her mouth so far gave her the upper hand in the conversation, hell—Betty’s not so sure she didn’t know who this house belonged to before she bought it. Gladys Jones doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who doesn’t do her research first.

 

The tension is broken by the back door banging open, Alice blustering through, oblivious to everything around her—as is usual these days. “Betty, I’m going to pick up some more bubble wrap from the store. Make sure you answer any questions the Jones’ have about the house while I’m gone.” She grabs the keys from the hook and is out the door in the next second, leaving silence in her wake.

 

“Jug,” Betty says when she finally finds her voice. “How about you come and help me with a few boxes upstairs? Juggie?” His nostrils flare as she tugs on the hand she’s still holding, half dragging him towards the staircase.

 

The comfort she’s about to offer when they’re a safe distance away is interrupted. “Hey.”

 

Jellybean emerges from Polly’s old bedroom, arms folded as she leans against the doorframe, in such a way that unnervingly resembles her mother. “You’re Jughead’s girlfriend.” Not a question.

 

Betty shakes herself out, trying to forget her previous introduction with one of the Jones women and start anew. “Yeah. Hi, Jellybean. I’m Betty. I haven’t seen you since you were about… four,” she finishes lamely, already cringing at herself.

 

“Well, I’m not anymore.” This is going to go just as poorly.

 

“Jelly,” Jughead sighs, his voice upsettingly small. Jellybean doesn’t say anymore, turning to her brother with a neutral expression. A conversation Betty isn’t privy to seems to pass between them. Suddenly Jellybean deflates, straightening up with a roll of her eyes.

 

“I remember you a bit. You… braided my hair once.” The corner of her mouth lifts in an eerily similar way to how Jughead’s does. It’s sweet.

 

The memory doesn’t come immediately, but when it does it’s surprisingly clear, her fingers weaving through thin strands of Jellybean’s hair the way Polly had taught her to do, because she was upset that Jughead didn’t know how.

 

“I can do it,” Betty had said. “I’m really good at French braids.” Jughead’s face had lit up endearingly.

 

“Oh, yeah! Yeah, I did.” There’s another of those pregnant pauses, but this one doesn’t seem as bad that the one they’d just endured downstairs.

 

“You’re way out of my brother’s league, you know,” Jellybean says out of nowhere, a devilish gleam in her eyes. “He’s an actual trash panda.”

 

The tension is almost visible as it drains out of Jughead’s body, and the sigh he lets out this time is fond in its frustration. “Thanks, squirt.”

 

“Anytime.” She sticks her tongue out at him. “I’m gonna go find Mom and Dad. Dibs on this room,” she adds, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at Polly’s bedroom. Her muted footsteps thud down the carpeted stairs as Betty drags Jughead into her—old—room and shuts the door.

 

Everything is unusually bare, faded marks and sticky remnants from where all her memorabilia had been taken down and boxed away. Betty was half concerned that if she didn’t keep an eye on it her mom would take it to The Farm to be ceremonially burned.

 

“That could’ve gone better.”

 

“God, Betty, I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin—” She cuts off his unfounded apologies by bringing his face down to hers. Slowly, she lets her tongue slide against the seam of his lips until he sighs into her mouth and grips the material at her waist.

 

“You don’t have anything to apologise for,” Betty murmurs, barely pulling away to speak. Knowing how much he worries, it feels important to reassure him of this first.

 

“Of course I do,” Jughead worries anyway, slipping his fingers under the edge of his hat to tug at his hair. “I never imagined she’d _say_ something like that to you.”

 

“Exactly,” Betty soothes, grabbing the lapels of his jacket and walking him over to the window. “You never imagined. It’s not your fault.” She positions them carefully, sliding her hands up until she can play with the hairs at the nape of his neck. “You don’t have to say sorry for whatever your mom says to me. Someone told me, not so long ago, right in this very spot, that we are not our parents.”

 

That works to get a smile out of him, his face softening visibly as he takes in their surroundings. “Sounds smart, that someone.”

 

“He’s okay,” she deadpans. “But that also means we should stop apologising for the things our parents do that are out of our control.” Jughead ducks down to rest their foreheads together.

 

When her mom had announced she was selling the house, the first thing that had popped into Betty’s head was the need to try and convince Alice that she could fix this. The Black Hood had broken their whole lives but she, Betty, could fix it. Hearing that the sale had gone through felt like a failure on her part. And failure was not something she was good at dealing with.

 

She’d never admit it but when the Jones’ had turned up, her brain had short circuited so quickly at the idea they were moving in that she hadn’t realised just what was coming out of her mouth. After the fog cleared all that remained was shame, and the clarity that she was being something of a dick. They’d had their chance at the nuclear family, and it predictably exploded. It couldn’t be fixed when she was the only one willing to try. Why not let someone else have their chance at a do-over?

 

“You’re amazing,” Jughead whispers into the side of her neck, squeezing tightly.

 

“You’re just saying that so I’ll let you live in my room,” she teases, revelling in the vibrations his chuckle sends through her body.

 

“Dibs.”

.

.

.

The birthday party had been less of a disaster than the last time a Jones had one, she’ll say that much.

 

The bitter taste left in her mouth by her earlier introduction to Gladys hadn’t gone away by the time she arrived, but it was replaced by something entirely new when Jughead came up behind her, asking for her help. The smoothness of his voice as he whispered in her ear, hands coming to rest on her hips, sent shivers all the way to her toes. It ignited that feeling she’d come to crave, somewhere between her belly and her thighs, humming deliciously at the thought of what else they might to together later.

 

If Jughead hadn’t been dragged into the celebrations she’d have suggested a trip to the closest bathroom stall right there and then, but as the night wore on something better came to mind. Even if it demanded a little patience from her.

 

The ladder is just where they’d left it, Alice not having need to take it with her to The Farm. She props it against the side of the house, and hopes this is as easy as Jughead made it look.

 

Her sneakers squeak and she wishes she’d changed into pants before she began this venture. But even the unsteadiness of the ladder and potentially flashing anyone below is all worth it for the look on Jughead’s face when he slides open the window.

 

“What the hell are you doing?” he whispers, holding out his hands to steady her as she climbs gracelessly through.

 

“Looking for Juliet, have you seen her?”  Betty quips, purposefully stumbling into his chest as she tries to right herself.

 

Jughead doesn’t have time to laugh before she’s pressed herself to the length of his front, sealing their lips together, grateful his hat’s already off as she fists handfuls of his hair.

 

“You know what you said earlier about me sleeping in your room without you?” Jughead breathes between kisses, interrupting himself by ducking in for more. “You could always stay. Here. I love it when you stay.”

 

“I love it, too,” she sighs, squeezing her eyes shut as she pictures the day when they can have that, a place that’s all theirs, together. She doesn’t go into all the reasons they can’t right now, it’s not the time. Right now she just wants to feel everything they’ve built together reach the peak and fall apart in the best way possible.

 

He laughs with her when her eager fingers fumble with his belt, and she giggles when her shirt gets caught over her head. He cups her breast through the lace of her bra and Betty bites down on his lip to stifle her moan.

 

She presses herself impossibly closer to him, all hard lines and sturdy limbs, whining when he takes too much time to put his hands where she wants them. Their steps move in a well-practiced dance across the room, Betty remembering the steps in the space that used to be hers, and is now his, somehow theirs. Jughead’s knees hit the edge of the mattress sending him tumbling. As always she falls with him, legs bracketing his, only the thin fabric of their underwear left between them while she circles her hips slowly.

 

They’ve done this so many times now that there’s nothing left to hide between them. Every inch is explored, every movement known, and yet it still feels brand new when he tilts his hips up and hits at the right angle, sending the air from her lungs with a _whoosh_.

 

The final garments get thrown aside, protection retrieved quickly, his muffled groan lost in her skin as he pushes inside. It’s so familiar yet completely different as they find their rhythm, the speed of her hips increasing with the coil that bunches inside of her, ready to snap. This room isn’t hers anymore. It was hard to acknowledge that but it’s okay, no matter who lives in it now. She doesn’t need this house to keep herself grounded in reality. All she needs is this feeling, right here.

 

The room around them blurs to nothing, Jughead’s hand creeping down Betty’s body to settle between her thighs, has her tumbling over the edge with a silent scream. A few more snaps of his hips and he follows soon after, a curse pressed from his lips to hers.

 

Afterwards the air seems to be lit with a soft, yellow glow. Betty tucks herself into his side, eyes closed, and they could be anywhere.

 

“Hey, Jug?” she whispers when his heart rate has evened out beneath her ear. His only response is a low hum. “Did you remember to lock the door?”

 

Jughead laughs as he pulls the blankets up around them. “Betty, I haven’t had my own door in years. Lock it was the first thing I did.”

 

Her whole body tingles. If she couldn’t fix this house for her own family, then fixing it for Jughead is the only other thing she’d rather do.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are always appreciated if you enjoyed <3


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